


In One Life or Another

by LittleRaven



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mortis (Star Wars), Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Post-Episode: s04e13 A World Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:07:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18294689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven





	In One Life or Another

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



The cave is quiet inside, after the apparition disappears, but Ahsoka's head is full. _Seeds of darkness. If you remain his student._ The words buzz in her mind. 

Who are you, Ahsoka thinks. Not herself, and yet... 

She knows she is not always what a Jedi should be. He never says it in as many words, but she knows it is something Anakin understands, the way only someone who is like her can, and she loves him for it. He knows how to be like her and be a Jedi.

She understands the seeds are not placed there, but shared. 

The Jedi teach acknowledgment of your emotions. Understanding. So. 

She's willing to see the dark side. To understand it, as part of her duty. Ahsoka's not one to shrink from commitment. 

She sits, cross-legged. She closes her eyes, and breathes. 

Within her chest, the Force stills. Something blooms across her eyelids. 

 

She opens her eyes, heart is in her throat, lightsabers still burning white into Vader’s chest. She doesn’t have the courage to remove that last touch. She’d wanted answers, a problem solved. He is on his knees still, breathing his last, kept up by her blades, and she is afraid of him falling through them. She is afraid of it being over. 

He breathes her name, and in the cold red light, she looks into his yellow eye and fixes it in her memory. She turns her weapons off at last, kneels too, catches his head. The Force gathers around them; she feels it waiting. Hushed. When he dies, she looks into the red unbroken lens of his mask and sees her own eyes yellowed, burning. 

 

Ahsoka gasps, but makes no other movement, unwilling to break the trance. Not this life. 

 

Ahsoka’s eyes open to the fire, curling into smoke above the temple.

It should take care of any who remain alive. Ahsoka turns to Anakin and after a shared look, tells, the 501st to remain and shoot anyone trying to get out—or in.

They have to move quickly, kill the opposition, end the war before anyone can control the press and tell their story for them. Word of the Chancellor's death won't be kept quiet for long, and the destruction of the temple leaves them with even less time.

Only a little while ago, neither of them had imagined this. Destroy the Sith and the Sith-corrupted Jedi, and save the Republic they'd always served. 

When they finish off the Separatist leaders on Mustafar and regroup—as expected, without instructions from Sidious, some of them had been cowardly enough to try running—Obi-Wan is waiting.

He's not a match for them together, really, but he knows to take care of that. Ahsoka doesn't feel the burn of the lightsaber in her stomach for more than a moment. Just the burn of her master's grief.

She reaches for him, thinking, _perhaps in another life_ , and the Force sings. 

 

There are tears down Ahsoka’s cheeks, and she sways, but she doesn’t move. 

 

Her eyes open. Ahsoka uncrosses her legs and rises from the bedroll in her narrow chamber. Her master may tolerate her need of meditation–he encourages practice of her powers, and the contribution to her, therefore his, mystique–but he does not tolerate lateness. Particularly not if it makes him appear less in control before others. 

Well. The insubordinate would-be cartel leader should arrive in minutes. With a burst of Force-speed, she'll arrive in time, just. She owes master Jab her obedience, for now. Doesn't mean she can't tease him.

Ahsoka draws a breath, concentrates—her power does take effort, which she's managed to conceal from most—and behind running.

The hall is full as always when she arrives, setting herself off just so in the shadow of her master's throne. 

She'd been right about the timing. There he is, coming through the doors: the Force sings. This is no cartel leader or would-be usurper foolishly—desperately might've been a truer word—trying to wrest a living off Tatooine without paying tribute to Jabba. 

She doesn't have a word for what he is. He's too bright, too much, to be the peace-loving nature freak she's heard the Jedi described as—heard, and never seen. Maybe she doesn't need an official label for him. 

She looks at him, his blue eyes, and in the second before she squeezes Jabba's throat into pulp she knows him. Kin.

There is fighting. Of course. The other Hutts would want revenge, swift and bloody and richly rewarded. Some of Jabba's court would be eager to try for the credits, disregarding the obvious risk posed by their potential involvement—or embracing it. 

Which, conveniently enough, gives her the opportunity to exact a little revenge of her own. Silently, she gathers herself into the Force and speeds up again. Her hands are on a blaster–the blaster is shooting, precise blasts searing through the chains of Jabba's other favored pets. Then the flesh of his courtiers. 

Not much more than his pets themselves, she thinks, then pushes the thought aside. They had been willing enough to find themselves here. To hurt and climb into his favor. They hadn't been bought and sold. Taken from their families...maybe. She moves on. 

It's over sooner than it feels. The hall stinks more than usual, with the smoke and the flesh nearly burned. 

There they are, the only living beings that haven't fled. He turns, as dirty as she is, and as lacking in visible sweat. He holds out his hand. 

They make it as far as a day; good enough together to escape in the confusion, and he is a half-decent pilot, but no match for the Hutts' money, not without help. Their ship's defenses are down, the missile is moving faster than they can escape. Ahsoka can see the light outside, and this time, she's the one to offer her hand. He turns to her and when they touch, she thinks, looking at him, _maybe in another life_. Their eyes stay open.

 

Ahsoka breathes. The Force remains still. She remains with it. 

The apparition's words come to mind once more. They stand alone in the new silence of her mind. This time, she follows them, and moves beyond. She has more to see. 

Something blooms across her eyelids. 

 

The room is dark. She is Ahsoka, but she is someone else too. There are others; he is there, with his master; above all, he is there, beaten again, kneeling. For the last time. She feels it in the air. 

But not for the reason he thinks. The Force sings. 

The person who is not Ahsoka makes another choice—her choice. And she sees him. They see him. Tired but strong, and then in the next moment, proving it. 

He is there, and he knows it, embraces himself at last. When he asks for his mask to be removed, to see the person who is not Ahsoka, she knows he sees her too. And he knows it. 

Anakin's eyes remain with her. 

 

When Ahsoka opens her own, she feels the tears and lets them run their course. This will not be the last time. She welcomes the fact. 

 

The temple is quiet, and so is her head, but it's full. She can feel the history of them both, and she has been part of it. Now it is time to leave it. There's a future ahead, a promise to keep, and she needn't be alone to face it.

 _Yes_ , she thinks, looking into the blue eyes of the blue ghost in front of her, Force buzzing and singing around him. In this life, they have time. 

 

Back down in the cave, her eyes open.


End file.
